Court Dress in Qing Dynasty

Dragon robes

Winter court hats of empress dowagers and empresses were made of fumed marten and sewn with red wefts. Their hats adorned with pearl, gold pheasant patterns, gems and jade ornaments had protective collar behind the neck with drooping bright yellow ribbons. Summer court hats were made of cyan velvet.

Empress dowagers, queens and high-ranked imperial concubines used cyan sheets with gold-wrapped metal trims to decorate their court costumes; images of dragons and Chinese charactersFu(blessing) andShou(longevity) were embroidered on the clothes. The winter court robes of empress dowagers, queens and high-ranked imperial concubines were bright yellow, and also decorated with images of dragon patterns. Necklines of dresses of empress dowagers and queens were made of golden filament and decorated with pearls, turquoises and jade ornaments. Three sets of necklaces were hung on the chest when empress dowagers and queens wore court robes. When an empress dowager or queen was in auspicious clothing, she always wore one set of necklace made of pearls, jade and other top-grade materials. Court necklaces of imperial concubines were decorated with ambers, each having 108 beads in four parts divided by three big ones.

In the Qing Dynasty only Emperors had the privilege of wearing the dragon robes decorative of the dragons with 12 insignia badges, whose designing include circular collar,big front,right border(opening),narrow and comprehensive sleeves with sleeve end of horse shoes shape.The demy front and back of the robe was sumptuously embroidered 9 dragons and embellished with gold, pearls and precious stones. In the front of the robe collar was embroidered with one front dragon each and at the joining of the left and right borders have decorative dragons each, while there is a front dragon at the end of horseheel-shaped sleeves. The collar and sleeves were brimmed with azurite gold satins. The clothing materials could be changed according to seasons, for instance, cotton, gauge, sandwich blend, or fur, etc.

Emperor's court crowns fall into two categories:winter and summer crowns.

The appearance of winter court crown is a slope-shaped round top edged with an upward brim.It is made of fur or black fox skin topped with jewel crown including golden screws carved golden dragons and clouds and embedded with oriental jewel. The jewel top is divided into three tiers:the bottom is a base decorated with 4 front dragons around 4 oriental pearls; the second and the third tiers was decorated with 4 rising dragons around 4 oriental pearls respectively; while each tiers has one oriental pearl connect. The jewel top decorated with 15 oriental pearls in total while a big oriental pearl was embedded on the top. 

Empress court crown

Empress winter court crown was made of black fur and whose appearance is in semi-conical shape embellished a red weft and a brim around it. The crown top is similar in appearance of a pagoda, which was divided into three tiers with one oriental peal and one phoenix decorated 3 big oriental pearls each and at each holding a big oriental pearl in the upper mouth.The red weft-knitting was embellished with 7 golden phoenixes while each phoenix was decorated with 9 oriental pearls and a cat's eye, while there were 21 pearls on each phoenix tail. The back of the crown was decorated with golden pheasants hanging down to the pearl knot with 5 pendant strings of 64 beads, which meant’the five elements, mental, wood, water, fire and earth, held by ancient to compose the physical universe’and two achievements. A collar protector shaped in bottle gourd hanging down from the brim lining in the back of the crown while under the collar protector hanging down two yellow silk ribbons without any jewel decoration. The left and right sides of the court crown was made of blue and green cotton flannel. Other moldings are similar to that of winter court crown.